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Earth scientists are offering a new answer to the long-standing question of how our planet acquired its oxygenated atmosphere. Based on a new model that draws from research in diverse fields including petrology, geodynamics, volcanology and geochemistry, the team’s findings were published online this week in Nature Geoscience. They suggest that the rise of oxygen in Earth’s atmosphere was an inevitable consequence of the formation of continents in the presence of life and plate tectonics.
Image credit: Photo courtesy of ISS Expedition 7 Crew, EOL, NASA
